Today's Birthdays 9/6

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 9/6/08 at 4:49pm

Otto Kruger 09/06/1885 - Sep 6, 1974 performer, 1 of the BEST bad guys ever, terrifically subtle character actor - origs WILL SHAKESPEARE (Katharine Cornell, Cornelia Otis Skinner; in the same play!); THE ROYAL FAMILY; LAURA; film's SABOTEUR; CASH MCCALL; MURDER, MY SWEET; HITLER'S CHILDREN

Michael Gordon 09/06/1909 - Apr 29, 1993 Director, Designer, Performer, Technical Crew, Stage Manager - origs JOHNNY JOHNSON; GOLDEN BOY; MAGGIE (by Bily Roy); THE TENDER TRAP

John Berry 09/06/1917 - Nov 29, 1999 Director, Performer, Production Crew - orig NATIVE SON (Ray Collins, Everett Sloan); 1972 THE CRUCIBLE; DR. JAZZ (Bobby Van, Lola Falana, Peggy Pope)

Jo Anne Worley 09/06/1937 performer - The Billy Barnes People; Hello, Dolly! [s/b for Channing]; Prince of Central Park; The Drowsy Chaperone [replacement]; tv's & film's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In; Goodnight, We Love You; Adventures in Paradise; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; Love, American Style; The Shaggy D.A.; The Love Boat; Murder, She Wrote;

Swoosie Kurtz 09/06/1944 performer - 1975 AH, WILDERNESS! (Geraldine Fitzgerald, Linda Hunt, Paul Rudd, Teresa Wright); 1977 TARTUFFE (Tammy Grimes, John Wood, Victor Garber); FIFTH OF JULY (Christopher Reeve, Jeff Daniels, Amy Wright); THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES (Ben Stiller, Danny Aiello, Stockard Channing, Julie Hagerty); IMAGINARY FRIENDS (Cherry Jones); Frozen; 2006 Heartbreak House; film's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

Jane Curtin 09/06/1947 performer - 1981 CANDIDA (Joanne Woodward); 2001 NOISES OFF; 2002 OUR TOWN; tv's SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE; KATE & ALLIE; Antz; Our Town; Brooklyn Lobster (Danny Aiello); The Shaggy Dog

Rosie Perez 09/06/1964 performer; Started her career as a dancer on "Soul Train" (1971) - The Ritz; replacements FRANKIE & JOHNNY; THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE; tv's & film's IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU; Lackawanna Blues (Louis Gossett Jr., S. Epatha Merkerson, Liev Schreiber, Jimmy Smits; Patricia Wettig, Charlayne Woodard); Do the Right Thing

Anika Noni Rose 9/6/1972 performer - 2008 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Caroline or Change; Footloose [replacement]

Cameron Boyd 09/06/1984 performer - 1993 ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS (Sam Waterston, Lizabeth MacKay); tv's THE SOPRANOS; King of the Hill

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DAY:

1927 Good News

1943 Blithe Spirit with Clifton Webb, Peggy Wood

1955 Catch a Star with Pat Carrol, Trude Adams

1978 Players with Fred Gwynne, Michael O'Hare

1979 Peter Pan with Sandy Duncan, Geo. Rose, Neva Rae Powers

2000 Actor Ralph Fiennes, who played Hamlet on Broadway in 1995 in The Almeida Theatre Company production at the Belasco Theatre returns to New York City in two other Shakespearean roles. The British actor alternates in the leads in The Almeida Theatre Company productions of Richard II and Coriolanus at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Jonathan Kent, who helmed Fiennes in Hamlet, takes on directorial duties once more for this production.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1941 Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.

1952 Gertrude Lawrence dies. She was starring as Anna in The King and I at the St. James with Yul Brynner. One of her last requests was that Brynner, her leading man in the show, be upgraded in the posters and Playbills from below to above-the-title billing, sharing star billing with whomever would play Anna in other performances.

1958 - Actor Steve McQueen starred on the CBS-TV series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. McQueen played bounty hunter Josh Randall. Randall was a man of few words but sure knew how to use his .30-.40 sawed-off carbine on the bad guys.

1976 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were reunited by Frank Sinatra -- after 20 years of going their separate ways. The former comedy team warmly met each other again during a surprise visit by Martin to Lewis’s annual Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy.

1985 Andre Gregory, Arthur Rubin, Barbara Cook, George Hearn, Mandy Patinkin, Lee Remick, Jim Walton, Howard McGillin, Daisy Prince, Liz Callaway, Betty Cromden, Adolph Green, Liliane Montevecchi, Elaine Stritch, Phyllis Newman, Carol Burnett, Licia Albanese and Erie Mills convene upon the stage at Avery Fisher Hall to perform a concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. (Where the heck was I?) The musical originally produced on Broadway in 1971 will finally see a revival 30 years later.

1997 - The Westminster Abbey funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales, was an extraordinary event, marked by numerous poignant moments: The people sobbing and throwing flowers at the funeral cortege winding through the streets of London. Her sons, walking behind her casket with their heads bowed. And Diana’s brother, who during his funeral oration took aim at the media, who he said made the princess “the most hunted person of the modern age.” Elton John sang a rewritten version of Candle in the Wind to “England’s rose”. The song was originally a tribute to film legend Marilyn Monroe, whose own tragic life, like Diana’s, ended at the age of just 36.

1998 Japanese director Akira Kurosawa died at age 88.

2007 Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti died at age 71.

(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla